TCS among top 10 to get certification for H1B visas
Cognizant comes at No. 3 with 47,732 specialty occupations labour conditions programme
Tata Consultancy Services is the only Indian company among the top 10 firms to receive foreign labour certification for H1B visas for 2018. The firm received over 20,000 such certifications, according to the data in which EY was ranked number one.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the only Indian company among the top 10 firms to get foreign labour certification for H1B visas for the fiscal year 2018. It received over 20,000 such certifications, according to official data in which EY was ranked No. 1.
The H1B visas are the most sought-after among Indian IT professionals.
The visa programme allows companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in the US on a non-immigrant basis in specialty occupations or as fashion models of distinguished merit and ability. London headquartered EY, a multinational professional services firm, has emerged as the top employer to have received the certification, the date from the US labour department said.
In fact, EY with 151,164 H1B specialist occupation labour certifications accounted for the 12.4 per cent of all foreign labour certification for the H1B work visas for the fiscal year 2018 ending on September 30, according to the latest annual report released by the Department of Labour early this month.
EY is followed by Deloitte Consulting which received 69,869 H1B specialty occupations labour conditions programme.
Indian-American owned Cognizant Technology Corp comes at No. 3 with 47,732 specialty occupations labour conditions programme, the Department of Labour said in its latest annual report.
Cognizant is followed by HCL America (42,820), K Force Inc (32,996), and Apple (26,833). India’s Tata Consultancy Services or TCS is the only Indian company in top 10 for the year 2018.
According to the Department of Labour in the fiscal year 2018, ended on September 30, TCS had received 20,755 H1B specialty occupation labour certifications.
Qualcomm Technologies (20,723), Mphasis Corporation (16,671) and Capgemini America (13,517) are the other companies in top 10.
In the 2018 fiscal year the Department of Labour’s Office of Foreign Labour Certification processed 654,360 applications for the H-1B specialty occupations labour conditions programme, of which 599,782 were certified, 8,627 were denied and 45,951 were withdrawn. It received requests for 1,266,614 position of which 1,223,053 were certified.
Among the positions certified, software developers and applications accounted for nearly one-fourth with 285,963 positions being certified.
This was followed by computer systems analyst (176,025), computer occupations (120,736), software developers, system software (67,262), accountants and auditors (54,2410), and computer programmers (53,727).
California with 309,205 certifications topped the list of States for getting maximum H1B labour certification, followed by Texas (115,484), New York (95,722), New Jersey (65,232), Illinois (56,196), Washington (52,522), and Pennsylvania (51,471).
According to Department of labour, a specialty occupation requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of specialised knowledge and a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent in the specific specialty (e.g. sciences, medicine, health care, education, biotechnology, and business specialties, etc.).
Congress has limited the annual number of qualifying foreign workers who may be issued a visa or otherwise be provided the H1B status to 65,000 with an additional 20,000 under the H1B advanced degree exemption.
Before applying for the H1B visas the employer submits a labour condition application to the Department of labour. Companies can proceed with the H1B petitions, only after they receive such a certification by the labour department.